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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148288">the better choice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jens/pseuds/Jens'>Jens</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Communication Failure, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:02:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,286</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148288</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jens/pseuds/Jens</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kise talks too much.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aomine Daiki/Kise Ryouta, Kagami Taiga/Kise Ryouta</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the better choice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kise loves talking. He talks a lot and if you were to ask Aomine, he’d say that it’s annoying. But that’s not what he really thinks; honestly Aomine loves listening to Kise’s voice, getting lulled by his babbling as he tunes out the words.</p><p>“Aominecchi! You’re not listening, are you?”</p><p>“Who’d wanna listen to you talking about your modelling or whatever? I just wanna sleep.” Aomine yawns for good measure. An uncomfortable silence follows his words.</p><p>Usually Kise would start pouting and say how mean Aomine is and Aomine would indulge him for a moment, maybe even offer a half-hearted apology or a promise of a one-on-one before going to sleep. But not this time. This time Kise stays quiet for so long that Aomine gets a feeling that he must have missed something important and Kise is actually <em>hurt</em> because he wasn’t paying attention. Or angry.</p><p>(Which doesn’t really make that much of a difference except that an angry Kise is easier to deal with than a hurt Kise.)</p><p>The thing is, Aomine doesn’t know how to express himself. He’s especially bad at expressing his feelings towards Kise. In the face of Kise’s upbeat attitude all he can do is either go along with it (which has gotten them into trouble before) or to crush his spirit.</p><p>Unfortunately, being mean is easier.</p><p>“What, you actually said something that could matter to me?” Still, Aomine is hoping Kise would repeat what he said. But he doesn’t. Instead there’s another beat of silence, the kind that feels suffocating, and then –</p><p>“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” There are fucking <em>tears</em> in Kise’s eyes as he says that and gets up. Aomine scrambles to his feet too, only to get pushed out of balance and onto his ass by Kise before the boy makes a hasty escape from the rooftop.</p><p>“Oi! Kise, stop! I’m sorry, okay?!” Kise doesn’t show any signs of even having heard Aomine; in fact the pace of his footsteps only increases. “Kise!”</p><p>“You really are horrible, Aomine-kun.”</p><p>Aomine jumps two metres into the air upon hearing Kuroko’s voice all of a sudden. “Fuck Tetsu, don’t sneak up on people like that!”</p><p>“Kise-kun thinks very highly of you, Aomine-kun. The least you could do is listen when he opens up to you. At least sometimes,” Kuroko adds when Aomine opens his mouth to protest; he’s not interested in about 90% of what Kise says and he's not about to start paying attention to all the drivel he spouts.</p><p>Something that Kuroko just said stands out to him, though.</p><p>“Wait, were you here just now? Did you hear what Kise said?”</p><p>Kuroko doesn’t say anything but his expression speaks volumes. <em>‘Even if I did hear what he said, I’m not going to tell you. You should have been listening.’</em></p>
<hr/><p>Aomine feels awful but he’s not exactly worried. Kise’s always been quick to forgive him before; maybe the prospect of not being able to play one-on-one and try to beat Aomine has made him lenient.</p><p>But this time Kise proves to be utterly unforgiving. No matter what Aomine says or does, no matter how many times he apologises, Kise just throws a wry smile in his general direction, not even looking him in the eye, and refuses to acknowledge his efforts.</p><p>“You don’t really care, do you? Kurokocchi just made you feel guilty. Momocchi too probably.” And “if you really cared, you wouldn’t even need to apologise because you would have listened”.</p><p>It’s not like Aomine’s never fought with a friend before (more like he does it all the time, sometimes by accident) but with Kise it hurts so much he doesn’t quite know what to do. He talks to Momoi about it, hoping for some sympathy and maybe even some light into why Kise’s so pissed, but of course life isn’t that easy.</p><p>She does, however, help him come into a life-changing realisation.</p><p>(Approximation of how the conversation goes:</p><p>“I don’t know how to get Kise to talk to me again…”</p><p>There’s a hint of pity in Momoi’s eyes as she glances at Aomine. “You really do have a knack for screwing things up, don’t you, Dai-chan.” It’s not even a question, just a statement, and Aomine wholeheartedly agrees.</p><p>“But Kise’s always going on about things I don’t care about, how am I supposed to know when it’s important?”</p><p>“Why do you even care so much if being with Ki-chan is so boring?” she counters, although it’s evident in her tone that she already knows and is just waiting for Aomine to get it too.</p><p>“Uh… he’s my friend?”</p><p>“Yes, and?”</p><p>“What and? That’s it, he’s my friend, I hurt him, and now he won’t talk to me anymore!”</p><p>“…you really have no idea about anything, do you?” Momoi swats his head and it kind of hurts. “You wouldn’t care that much if it was me or Tetsu-kun, and even if you did, you’d know what to say to make us forgive you but when it’s Ki-chan, you’re all helpless! Get it already, you big dummy!”</p><p>It’s on the tip of his tongue, right there and Aomine knows what this feeling is, he just has to find the right words –</p><p>“…Kise’s special?”</p><p><em>Oh.</em> When he says it out loud, everything suddenly makes sense.)</p><p>After that, everything is different. He suddenly has knowledge he didn’t before, knowledge that he likes Kise. And that’s… kind of scary.</p><p>So maybe he isn’t as straight as he’s thought. Or maybe Kise’s the only exception; he honestly can’t imagine himself liking any other guy than Kise.</p><p>But the fact is that he likes Kise and now they’re going to different schools and probably won’t see much of each other and Aomine kind of wants to break things and just cry because Kise still won’t even look at him, let alone talk.</p><p>It’s okay though, he’ll find a way to fix things. And when he does, he’ll tell Kise how he feels and maybe, just maybe, there’ll be a happy ending for them yet.</p>
<hr/><p>After they start high school, Kise suddenly reaches out to Aomine through Kuroko and Momoi. Aomine is elated for all of five minutes until he realises Kise is not going to confess his undying love for him (a bit out there, admittedly, but hey, a boy can dream).</p><p>“I want to be friends with you, Aominecchi.”</p><p>Aomine swallows his first instinct of saying something hurtful, swallows his anger, and agrees. He wants Kise back in his life in whatever capacity, he can work on the boyfriend thing later.</p><p>Except he can’t, because Kagami Taiga comes along.</p><p>And Aomine knows from their very first meeting that he can’t compete. Because he recognises the way Kise looks at Kagami, how could he not when it’s the same way Kise used to look at him back when they were teammates?</p><p>And how was he so stupid back then, how did he not see the depth of Kise’s admiration, that it really wasn’t just admiration at any point, that he could’ve had Kise if only he’d looked?</p>
<hr/><p>(Sometimes, when Aomine catches Kise stealing a kiss from Kagami, completely embarrassing him, or when the two shyly entwine their fingers when they think no one is looking, Aomine wonders what Kise said that one day on the rooftop. Was it a confession? Could he have become Kise’s boyfriend if only he’d been paying attention? Did he really blow his chance by not listening?</p><p>But then Kise smiles at Kagami in that love-struck way and Aomine thinks that he doesn’t want to know after all. It’s all in the past anyway.</p><p>So what if he hurts so bad that sometimes it’s hard to breathe?)</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>listen, I love Aokise and one day I will write a fic where they are happy together and there's no angst whatsoever but that day is not today lmao</p><p>I'm trying to clear out my WIP folder and found this, no idea if I was planning to make it into a multichapter fic at some point but I think it's good as a(n angsty) one-shot so this is it. also, idk what exactly Kise says that Aomine doesn't hear, that's sth everyone can decide for themselves</p></blockquote></div></div>
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